The Foundation is pleased to note the launch of OCHA’s new humanitarian data platform, HDX. Shown a preview of it some weeks ago, the Foundation believes HDX – well beyond the humanitarian sector per se – is a long overdue yet absolutely critical foundation in systemic interoperability and information sharing, for the UN family and beyond.
OCHA’s HDX team has put together a short animation and interactive demonstration to introduce the platform. You can also follow HDX at @humdata and join the conversation using #HumanitarianData. Sign up to receive blog updates and register as a user of the platform. The most recent blog post provides a great overview of the data already included in HDX.
The ICT4Peace Foundation has championed the concept behind HDX from the time of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, when we recommended the use of APIs to connect both the UN family as well as the V&TC community around disaster response. The Foundation has, as part of the United Nations CiM process, also worked closely with OCHA for years to support the development of HXL, and importantly, raise awareness around possible use cases within and outside the UN. Information featured in HDX will also come from OCHA’s COD/FOD datasets, which the ICT4Peace Foundation helped support and develop.
Warmly congratulating OCHA on the public launch of HDX, we look forward to supporting the UN and the broader volunteer and technical community around technical challenges that are for us central to on-going efforts to protect lives and help communities at risk help themselves.